Lead Yourself into the Future

CRASH! Our beautiful tower toppled over and looks of devastation flashed across each of our faces. Quickly we planned and tried again. One of the challenges in our leadership day was building a tower with only cups, string, scissors and elastic bands. There was a catch though, we weren’t allowed to touch the cups with any part of our body!

This challenge included leadership within the group, teamwork, sharing, equal amounts of work, resilience and a good plan. The ‘Cup Challenge’ was part of our ‘Lead Yourself into the Future’ day where the Donvale and Kew kids were put into groups. The group I was in was the orange group and we had around 10 kids in our group. 

With our plan we first decided to stack one cup facing up and then the next cup facing down and then repeat until we had run out of cups, this was the highest tower possible. Then we decided how we would stack them and take the string and cut a few pieces. Then we tied each prince of string to the elastic band. Then we had a few people to wrap their finger around the string and pull it out wide to fit over the cup. It was a good plan but unfortunately it was a little too uneven and hard to balance.

Next we decided to take one elastic band and with our fingers stretch it out so that the cup could fit inside the circle but our fingers wouldn’t be close enough to tough. This plan was less complicated and easy to control and balance the cups on top of each other. We also decided it was smarter to form a base so that it would be easier to balance the other cups on top.

 In the end we didn’t win because we put two cups at the base and so that was one less, but it was good teamwork and resilience for when our tower had fallen over. We also put string sticking out of our top cup in our tower, to make it taller. Now, I know that doesn’t sound like much but it made a difference, and it felt like a lot of pressure to put in on but it was worth it in the end.

Next time we maybe could have thought about planning a bit more. For example, we should have planned if our first idea didn’t work so we would have a backup idea. We also probably could’ve shared around the work a bit more evenly because some people didn’t get a go. We also could have shared more of our opinions. Though apart from that we showed great teamwork and it was also pretty fun.

Try this challenge with a few people, how did it go, did your tower fall over?

By Lorelei

Crocodile Adaptations 

The waters ripple but nothing breaks the surface in the waters. Or at least that’s what it seems. Above the waters is drift wood but other strange things lie under the surface. Any animals that comes close to the waters have made a grave mistake as seconds later they are taken under by a feared, camouflaged creature. The sly crocodile is a deadly creature feared by many animals and even our species humans.

Animal adaptation, In class we have been learning about adaptations. Each person picks an animal and learns about their changes and adaptations. The three main adaptations are physiological, structural, behavioural. My animal is the crocodile.

Animal adaptations. Did you know this there are around 13 main types of crocodiles? Saltwater crocodiles, Nile crocodiles, American crocodiles, marsh crocodiles, freshwater crocodiles, dwarf crocodiles, Siamese crocodiles, Cuban crocodiles, Philippine crocodiles, Orinoco crocodiles, Morelet crocodiles and west African slender snouted crocodiles. Crocodiles are cold blooded, reptiles. Though most people find it hard to tell what is a alligator and what is a crocodile. Crocodiles have more pointed snouts than alligators. 

The environment for crocodiles are based in water. They live in rivers, swamps, lakes, salt water, wetlands, fresh water and sometimes brackish water (sea water mixed with fresher water). They like to stay in warm, slow moving waters so that the current isn’t against them.

Physical appearance. Crocodiles are often brown, green colours or camouflaged colours. They have long bodies and short legs. Their eyes and nose are on top of there heads. They have webbing in their feet. Their skin is rough and leathery.

Diet. Crocodiles aren’t fussy when it comes to food. Anything near the water is added to the food list. They eat wilder beast, frogs, fish, crustaceans, crabs, birds, antelopes, warthogs, zebras and rarely, sometimes, humans. 

Structural Adaptations. Some of the Crocodile’s structural adaptations are their leathery skin. Their skin is like hard armour that protects. So when they are fighting big or fierce animals it helps protect them.  Absorbs heat making it easier to sit lie in the sun. So when they are waiting to strike it helps to keep them cool. The shape of the head is is to look like driftwood to blend in even more. Their eyes and nose are on the top of their heads so they can see and breathe without coming fully up to the surface. This helps when trying to blend in they have small eyes to blend in.

Behavioural and physiological adaptations. Some of the crocodiles behavioural or physiological adaptations are to tuck in their feet when they swim faster. Because crocodiles have webbed feet like ducks it allows them to swim faster against a current or just in general. They also cover themselves in mud to keep cool in and to blend in, this helps when waiting to strike. The also ingest stones sometimes to help break down food.

what adaptations do humans have?

By Lorelei

The Wild Robot 

My favourite book chat book this year was ‘The Wild Robot’. The author was Peter Brown. I think this book should be in the adventure, family and friendship or fantasy. I recommend this book to anyone in Year 3 to 6.

The reason is because it was the adventure of the only robot that had made it to land and it had to build a life there. The robot made a name for itself, Roz. The reason I think it’s also family and friendship is because at first the animals didn’t accept Roz and Roz had to gain their trust and help them. Roz also ‘adopts’ a duckling and supports it through their journey. And fantasy because they would never do that and I think is set in the future.

It is about a Robot who gets carried out to sea and was the only survivor because all the other robots got smashed on the rocks. Roz’s life is started up and she begins to explore this island. After a while Roz has learnt all the animals languages and tries to communicate with them. They still haven’t excepted Roz and turn there back onto it. After a really long time Roz gains their trust and helps the animals and they except Roz. 

This isn’t a book I would probably read though I really liked all the action and friendships in this book unfold. I liked it a lot because It wasn’t about human life like most books it was a different unique character that is friendly, caring, helpful and loving.

What is your favourite book this year?

By Lorelei

Christmas Trees

Christmas trees are important in Christmas. Most people set up their Christmas trees in December, nearer to Christmas. And like all other Christmas decorations they help bring joy to the festive time. There are 2 main types of Christmas trees, real trees and fake ones. For anyone with hay-fever allergies I recommend the fake Christmas trees because you don’t want puffy, swollen, red eyes on Christmas. 

Christmas trees are decorated with all sorts of ornaments such as, lights, baubles, fake candy canes, stars, elves, and usually a star or angle on the top of the Christmas tree. 

The angle or star on top of the Christmas tree is a vital ornament symbolising the first Christmas, when Jesus was born. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, there was the star that the wise me followed and the shepherd. The star is very important to the story, which it is important on the Christmas trees. 

Though the angels were also very important in the Christmas story. It was the angel Gabriel who told Mary she would be pregnant with Jesus. The angels also told the shepherd to see Jesus and spread the news. 

In Christmas with my family one of our favourite things are setting up our Christmas trees. It is a nice, fun family experience that puts us in a good, festive mood. On our tree we have baubles and different figures. We get a fake fir Christmas tree to prevent hay-fever.

What do you like about Christmas?

From Lorelei

Celebrations, festivities, holidays and traditions.

There are a lot of holidays such as, Christmas (eve), Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Day of the Dead, New Years Day (eve), Valentines Day, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Lunar New Year, Holi, Passover, Chinese New Year, St. Patrick’s Day and many more. 

My family celebrates many holidays, such as Halloween (sometimes), Christmas, Christmas Eve, Easter, (sort of) Valentines Day, Chinese New Year, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day and Australia Day. The most common holidays are Christmas, Christmas Eve, Valentines Day, Halloween, and Easter. 

My favourite celebration is Christmas. This is a Christian celebration. The celebration represents Jesus’s birth. Christmas is celebrated in different countries, all around the world in Christian families. Christmas in my family has a reunion at my grandparents house and exchange gifts. We usually have a few Christmas celebrations, one at my Aunty and uncle’s house, one at my grandparents house and one at our house. 

In my Christmas we have foods like, sweet mince pies, ham, gravy, stuffing, fruit cake, apple pie, pudding, candy canes, gingerbread houses and all sorts of meats. Traditionally, presents are put under a small fir tree inside the house. The tree is decorated with all sorts of ornaments, lights, baubles and small figures, and in cold places people make snowmen and put on clothing. 

At Christmas dinners there are bonbons, which two people pull one on one side and the other on the opposite side, both pull and who ever ends up the the main part gets a small toy which is on the inside. (small elves or fake candy canes). On the top of the tree there usually is a star or angel. At night Santa comes in his sleigh, the down the chimney and puts presents under the tree.

Bonbons

Santa

Another celebration I like is Easter. In Easter we eat hot cross buns and chocolate eggs. Most Easter foods are general dishes such as, ham and eggs.. A lot of Easter games are involving Easter eggs. The games are, egg rolling, egg tapping, pace eggs, confetti eggs and egg decorating. 

Eggs are a big part in Easter because they represent a new life or rebirth. Easter is on the first Monday after a full moon which is the week before. Most people celebrate Easter in a church service. My family celebrate Easter by eating hot cross buns, and on Easter the Easter bunny hides chocolate eggs around the house which we find.
 

One last holiday my family celebrate. Some of you who are reading this probably don’t know what is Australia Day. Australia was first discovered by Captain James  Cook, 29th April, 1770. (Australia Day is not on this day). The first Fleet was 11 ships that departed England with convicts and Australia Day is on the 26th January it marks the anniversary of the arrival of the first fleet. On Australia Day my family celebrate it by having a lamb or steak barbecue with friends and fake tattoo Australian flags on our arms.

 What holidays do you celebrate? 

By Lorelei 

Year 5 Toonallook

On Monday the 28 to Thursday the 31 I had THE best time ever at Toona. Some of you may not know that Toona is the camp that we go on in year 5 and 6. This camp is full of new fun activities and offer new exciting experiences. 

My favourite thing at camp was the ‘Shoe Game’. This game was new to all of us and had annoying rules. One of the rules were, ‘you can’t argue with the referee or challenge their judgment’, this meant that if we asked questions to the referee we would have a point removed. At the start we were split into teams and we had to make up a name and chant. My team’s name was ‘The Afterburners’ and the other team was ‘Jazz’s Jellybeans’. This game was easily learnt and fun. At the end we ended in a tie so we were all winners.

We had great food at camp and always had morning tea and afternoon tea. Morning and afternoon tea included fruit and delicious scones, muffins and other treats. On expo we had burgers and cheese and ham toasties. It was the best camp food ever!

The staff were very kind and caring always helping us. There were 4 main staff there was Grace and Jesse were the group helpers and were fun and helpful. Josh was the main camp instructor. Trish was our wonderful chef who made us the delicious food. There were also two  year 11 students who came with us, Coco and Jazz (Jasmine). I am very grateful they came because they helped us and had fun, (even though they had to study on the bus rides) it was worth it. 

Somethings I learnt on camp were, how to play King Ball (the best game ever), how to kayak and safety on boats. King Ball was a fun game kind of like down ball but a bigger ball and the ‘squares’ were ‘circles’. 

Kayaking was hard at first but a lot of people caught on quickly. After we all were confident we made a raft shape by all of us huddling (in our boats’ together. On the second day we went to the water police and they explained safety rules on boats and also showed us where they slept on the boats. It was a fun experience and everyone learnt a lot of important facts. 

Where was your favourite camp? What did you do there?

By Lorelei

Avatars

The week 1 challenge was about avatars. This is my avatar :

I made this avatar on ‘Cartoonify’. The things that are similar to me is the dark brown hair, eyes and the grey hoodie I wear. Not exactly everything is the same though. My hair isn’t exactly the same nor the eye shape.

Make an avatar, what similarities do you have?

By Lorelei

Reflection 

This term we have been learning about the 1850s gold rush and the Eureka Stockade. In this learning we had a project where we had to make dioramas and study a building. In this project me and my partner made the Tinsmith and we made a joint farm with another group. In this project we had to do a lot of research. The Tinsmith was the person that makes pick axes and utensils. In this store you can buy plates, bowls, utensils, pick axes, gold pans, pans and candles. This is my our Sovereign Hill diorama. 

I learnt that life in the 1850s life was not easy. In the early 1850s gold was sighted near Ballarat. This brought people from all around the world to find there fortune. However, the Chinese people were charged to port in Melbourne so they were forced to port and then walk to Ballarat. In the goldfields many people died of cave ins, polluted air and deceases. The miners also had to pay 30 shillings for a mining licence and most miners couldn’t afford it.

The Eureka Stockade was built for protection of the miners and were the could live when they protested for their rights and liberty’s, however On the 3rd of December the soldiers raided the Eureka  Stockade in the early hours surprising the sleepy miners. In the Eureka fight it led led to 25 miners and 6 soldiers deaths. 

One of the most important people was Peter Lalor this person led the miners to protest against paying for licences and made then swear against the Southern Cross to stand by each other and to fight for there rights and liberties. Although 22 miners were killed in the fight Peter Lalor survived and later on when miners rights changed Peter was elected into Victoria Legislative Council to include representatives from the goldfields, Lalor was one of the first elected in 1855.

Some of the P.L.As (Positive Learner Attributes)  that I used was Curiosity, Reflection, collaboration and knowledge. I used Curiosity when I first picked my building and researched a lot  which helped me to create the building. I also used knowledge before I researched to do a quick review of what we needed to make our building. I used collaboration to work well with my partner and make sure we would have a even amount of work to do. And I used reflection to see what was good with my building and to ask myself what I could do to my building. 

One of the activities we did after learning about the gold rush was creating our own newspaper. In my newspaper I made it about the murder of James Scobie and how it led to the Eureka Hotel burning down. Please read this to learn more about it.

Overall this unit I have learnt a lot about the gold rush and life in the 1850s in Ballarat. We also had a experience in Sovereign Hill where we learnt more about life in the gold rush and school in the gold rush. This term I have learnt to collaborate with my class to recreate Sovereign Hill and I learnt a lot about important dates and people. This is another activities I did. It was a Birds eye view of the diorama.

By Lorelei

BOOK WEEK AWARD

This term in library we have been reading and judging books by their information, illustrations and their lay out. These book were part of the shortlisted book category for the 2019 CBCA Book Week awards. These books were in the non-fiction. The books included were Make Believe, Our Birds, Waves, Sorry Day, Bouncing Back and  The Happiness Box. Everyone from year 4 to 6 voted on the best book. 

A good information book includes clear, good illustrations that match the writing and can describe the book even without the words. I really like when the illustrations are so good that you can see facial expressions and emotions. Perhaps tears streaming down there face or anger flaring in there eyes. When you can see these expression it makes it easier to understand what the person is feeling and helps you understand the book more. I like it in a book when the writing is spread out a bit so there isn’t a whole chunk of writing on one page. This makes the book easier to read and more likeable. 

My favourite book out of all six was probably ‘Our Birds’ or ‘Make Believe’. Even though these two were my favourite they were not necessarily the ones I voted, because our votes were based off which ones had the best illustrations, lay out, and information. Though one of them was the one I voted. This book was ‘Our Birds’. This one was one of my favourites because it had beautiful pictures that, matched the writing and descriptive. The information was set out really well and didn’t have all the information squished onto one page. I also liked how this one had the names of the bird in two languages, English and Yolngu. 

What do you think a good information book would need in it?      

By Lorelei

A Camp Adventure

his week all the year 5s had Camp. We all were going to… Sovereign Hill. At Sovereign Hill we had a School program that went for 2 days. My class was in the rich school, St Peter’s Denominational School. At the School we had to dress up! The girls had to wear long dresses and their hair in braids or plaits. We had to call our teacher (the headmistress) Ma’am.

 My favourite part was when the Vicar came. The Vicar was a person who was a higher rank than our headmistress. When he came in our teacher was really nervous. He came in and checked all our work. We even had to recite our 16 times tables. I also enjoyed going and seeing how gold was purified. The guy purified the gold right in front of us. A girl in our class even got to hold the newly made gold! 

I learnt a lot in the school program. I learnt how to, write in calligraphy, use ink and nib, to sew cross stitches and I learnt my 16 times tables. At school our teacher was really strict about our writing, we weren’t allowed to start with writing in ink and nib. We first had to start with chalk and a small blackboard. Then we write with pencils and then we got to write with ink and nib. Also when we wrote, our letters had to be sloped and in calligraphy  and every time we wrote it wrong she would give us 6 words, rub it out, do it again. It was so hard.

Although a lot of our time  was spent in school some of it wasn’t. In our spare time we, panned for gold, did the map activity, looked around in different shops, bought lots of cool stuff, we 

 visited the lolly factory and we went to research. Me and my partner were researching the Tinsmith. The tinsmith sold kit her utensils, candles and gold panning pans. 

One night we went to the Aura’s Light and Sound Show. The whole thing was based on gold. I think the whole thing was split into 3 different topics. The first video we saw was in 3D and was about how gold was created scientifically. The second clip we saw was the aboriginals perspective of the gold rush. And the third film we saw saw was telling us about the whole story of the Eureka Stockade and why that happened and how it changed Australia. 

Have you ever been to Sovereign Hill?       If so did you do the school program? 

By Lorelei